Julie Says

Eat the Ears First

Wondering when Easter is this year? There are two ways of figuring this out.

The first method involves knowledge of the lunar calendar. Every year, Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

The second method is with your regular paper calendar or datebook. Get it out and start flipping pages, beginning with March, and continuing until you find a Sunday with “Easter Sunday” written in the little square. If you get to May, you have gone too far. (To narrow your search down a little, the earliest possible date for Easter is March 22 in any given year, and the latest date is April 25.) To save you all some time, I already used the paper calendar method and determined that Easter Sunday 2017 falls on April 16.

As we all know, determining the date is not the only confusing thing about the holiday. You know what I’m talking about – the blind acceptance by millions of an egg-laying rabbit. Never mind that rabbits do not lay eggs. The vast majority of the population believes, likely based on its proclivity to wear bow ties, that the Easter Bunny is male. Hmmm.

German immigrants to Pennsylvania in the 1700s brought with them the story of an egg-laying hare known as Osterhase or Oschter Haws. Children made nests for the hare to lay colored eggs. As commercialism set in, nests were replaced by baskets and actual eggs with candy.

Just how much candy, you ask? In the U.S. each year, we buy 120 million pounds of Easter candy at a cost of $2.1 billion. This includes the production of 16 billion jellybeans, which is enough to circle the globe nearly three times. It also includes 90 million chocolate rabbits.

The National Confectioners Association reports that 76% of Americans say people should eat the ears first on a chocolate rabbit. If this is a subject of debate in your household, I suggest you go with the majority and begin at the top. My own favorite Easter treat is the Cadbury Egg, laid by that fluffy white bunny in TV ads every spring. Sure hope he hops by soon. Enjoy our beautiful spring weather, and have a Happy Easter!